Ho Chi Minh City police have arrested 16 Chinese who were in the city as tourists for allegedly swindling people back in their country out of money by claiming to be Chinese officials trying to safeguard their bank accounts.

At around 1 p.m. Sunday police went to a house in Binh Tan District's Binh Tri Dong B Ward and found nine men and seven women living there but without registering with local authorities.

Officers also found several laptops and tablets, seven VoIP gateway devices, cell phones, and an area code list of 35 China's cities and provinces.

They confessed to calling up wealthy people in China, posing as Chinese police, prosecutors, or other officials and telling them their bank accounts had been hacked.

They would then ask for bank account numbers and passwords, claiming they were needed to protect them.

While talking to the victims, to lull suspicion, they would play the sound of police sirens and police officers apparently reporting about the hacking to their superiors.

After getting the victims' account numbers and passwords, they would transfer money from their bank accounts to theirs.